ALL POSTS BY: Ninad Pendse
March Madness for Marketers a.k.a Marketing Madness
While most people were looking forward to the final four games last week, a lot of people here at Owen were very excited about the marketing madness that was held on last Thursday's kegs. With a one year hiatus last year, marketing madness was back on this year. And we had a good mix of companies participating.
For the uninitiated, let me explain what marketing madness is. Its an event where a bunch of companies participate and each team is assigned a company. That company then tells the team to promote specific product of the company or the company brand as a whole. And then it is up to the teams to come up with creative marketing display to incorporate the company's product and brand message.
This year we had
EJ Gallo- Hornsby Cider Microsoft XBOX games- Forza Motorsport 3
Heinz- Lea & Perrins worcestershire Sauce Mattel- Barbie Lip Smacker
Google WeTV- We Volunteer
Thanksgiving at Owen
I have been in US for 6 years now but haven't ever had a thanksgiving meal before. Thats partly because I, being a vegetarian, can't have the most important part of the meal, the Turkey. But I guess this was my lucky year and I got to have a thanksgiving meal, sans the Turkey of course.
Thanksgiving is a big break here at Owen. We have 10 days off so most of the students go back to their hometown. Two of my classmates, Yuri and Paul decided to have a thanksgiving dinner and dean Lehman graciously opened the Owen doors to have this dinner.
It was first thanksgiving dinner for most of the international students including me. Paul and Yuri with help from some other friends made the usual thanksgiving items: Turkey, Mashed potato, Gravy, Cranberry sauce, Salad. The turkey I heard was fabulous. We had the dinner in the Owen lobby with some nice music. After the dinner people watched the football game. It was time well spent with friends and by far my best thanksgiving.
Who so ever said Mod II was easy
Right from the first week of Mod I I have been hearing one thing from most of the second years. Its hectic only in Mod I. It gets better in Mod II. Seems like it wont get better anytime soon. Well at least not in Mod II.
When I compare Mod I with Mod II, I think I had more free time in Mod I. Its just been super busy in Mod II. It might partly be because most of the Mod II courses are qualitative and have a lot of reading associated with them. So that takes a lot of time. Also there are a lot more courses in this mod with Case writeups as assignment. Also in Mod I all the team members had same schedule hence it was easy to organize team meetings. In this Mod you have a different team for every course. That makes scheduling complicated. To add to all this, we are also getting started on the internship search. I guess all this makes Mod II much more hectic than Mod I, at least for me. The only silver lining is we have a 10 day break during thanksgiving. I am really looking forward to that.
Applying for Fall 2010 : Its never too late.
About this time a year ago I had just given my GMAT. In fact I gave my GMAT
on Sept 8. I remember the date vividly because after my exam I came home and
watched the MNF season opening double header on ESPN.
At that point I only knew that I wanted to go to business school. I didn't
know what exactly I wanted to do in business school. I didn't know which
schools I was interested in. There will be a lot of prospective students out
there who want to apply for Fall 10 and are in the same position. But don't
panic. Believe me, you have enough time. The first order of business for you
should be to start attending information sessions of various schools. Go on the
websites of schools that you think you will be interested in and look if they
have an event in your city. Many schools have events internationally so even
the international students can benefit from this. This gives you a chance to
gauge what are the strengths and weaknesses of the school.
The Mod System
Last week started with a finance quiz on Monday, stats midterm on Tuesday,
accounting midterm on Wednesday and ended with a party on Thursday. (I say
ended on Thursday because we don’t have classes on Friday.) And I realized that
half the Mod is over.
Some of the readers out there might be saying midterms already? That’s
right. When I was in Univ of Minnesota, my classes used to begin the day after
Labor Day. And here at Owen, Labor Day week is midterm week and we don’t even
have Labor Day off. That brings me to the Mod system. One of the things (among
many others) that you will have to get adjusted to here at Owen is the Module
system. So basically every semester is divided in to two mods. Mod I will end
1st week of Oct and then we will have a new set of courses for Mod II until the
end of semester.